What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

One of my idols Sheryl Sandberg, the operational director of Facebook, posed a very important question for me: “What would you do if you were not afraid?”

WHAT – WOULD – YOU – DO – IF – YOU – WERE – NOT – AFRAID?

According to Sandberg, women too often don’t believe in their abilities and withdraw from the game in many situations. This happens most often when they plan to become pregnant or when they become moms. A statistical man, having the same knowledge and experience as a woman, will not give up the opportunity he gets. Well, even if he does not have them, he will take anyway the challenge. He is sure of himself, he believes in himself, he knows that he will manage. Why then we- women perceive ourselves differently? Why do we still doubt in our capabilities? Cultural and social determinants and, unfortunately, a stereotypical approach to the role of women – mother and home carer, put a lot of pressure on us. Often, we may feel compelled to give up our own dreams and aspirations, because we cannot have the right to do so, since we should be good mothers and guardians of the house. Apart from this, unfortunately, we always expect more from each other, we always think we miss something and unfortunately quite often, we feel that we do not have (I mean promotion, career, better earnings) the right. We still cannot see that we actually can do both, because career and motherhood do not have to exclude each other.

The operational director of Facebook, in my favorite book “Lean in”, describes many situations in which women descend (at their own request), “sit at the back sit”. She describes office meetings where men take the place at the table and women stand aside. She talks about the circumstances in which women, when getting a promotion offer, conclude that they lack experience and knowledge to accept a new job. She also writes a lot about motherhood, about how women (mainly describing the situation in the USA) already at the stage of family planning, give up professional development because they are afraid that they will not be able to combine it with occupational development.

It is a bit harder for women. I have to admit that, although I am not a feminist … Only a woman can be a mother, only she can breastfeed her child, she will hear her every movement or sobbing with her maternal instincts, she usually sleeps little and can get up several times during the night, it is her who goes most often on maternity leave lasting half a year or a year, and often remains after that with the child at home. And then, when she returns to work, she has not only her professional life on her mind, but also her home – her second job. Because love and devotion are one thing, but cooking, cleaning and raising a child are also duties, the same as working in an office, but without financial remuneration. If we sum it all up, it would give us a second job. I am showing that to prove that it is hard for us, but what is special about mothers is that they can be incredibly strong. Unsatisfied, with no time to look after themselves, they can take on their shoulders a lot. Unfortunately, with the amount of duties, we often resign from our dreams …

The rhetorical question that appears to us at the beginning: “What would you do if you were not afraid?” Is to make us aware of how much women can do, if we only stop to be afraid. What are we afraid of? A lot of things, I’ll give you some examples: That we will be bad mothers if we start to develop professionally. More specifically, we will not be ‘perfect’ mothers if we work just as hard.That we have too little knowledge and experience to achieve success.That we want too much, and this is sth what is not allowed to us.Other. What other people will think about us ….We are afraid to take a chance and try to make our dreams come true… ..Sometimes we are afraid to leave a relationship that destroys and limits us …

And really many more. Each of us should ask ourselves the question: “What am I afraid of?”, Listen to yourself and try to answer them honestly. And when we get this sincere answer, we should try to do something with it. Because what would we do if we were not afraid? We could achieve a lot … The whole world is open to us, but we have problem to admit that what we want is within our reach … We just have to stop being afraid at last. It’s so easy to believe in others, it’s so hard sometimes to trust ourselves … am I right? Therefore, let’s not stop at the diagnosis itself. Conscious of what we fear, we can slowly begin to fight this fear. Because this is not the case, to immediately turn your whole life upside down, because ‘you are introducing THE change’. It will work out only when we will slowly get used to it, when we take up the challenge with small steps. In this way it will be easier to change the situation and yourself, your thinking, the way you are assessing events and information that is reaching you.

Would you like to do public performance, but you are afraid that it will not work out? Start practicing reading laud at home, then try with a small group of listeners, then with a bigger one and so on until one day you will stand in the big auditorium and without stammering, you will say whatever you want.

Would you like to run a business, but you are afraid that it will not succeed? Start planning, checking, researching the market and competition. See how others do it, think about what knowledge you are still missing. Learn, and with the time you will feel more confident in the subject … Make a plan, write down all the steps you need to do, define how much time you need for each of them, and then follow them one by one. In the end, you will maybe start a company J And it will be similar with everything. We have to define what we fear of and then let’s find the courage to fight against that! Ad what about the rest? We will manage the rest. Because if not us, than who?!